2008/7/23 joseph seddon <life_is_bitter_sweet(a)hotmail.co.uk>uk>:
How can we improve them?
I don't think we can.
If we are not offering money for a conference venue how can we get one:
1)find someone who is enough of a fan of wikipedia who is either the
owner of a conference venue or prepared to pay for it out of their own
pocket
2)Find someone who thinks they can gain by hosting the conference and
not charging for it.
I can't see 1) happening particularly not with a university. Most UK
universities have spotted that loaning themselves out to people
wishing to hold conferences and the like is a worthwhile income stream
and are not likely to do something to compromise that income stream. I
don't think we have anyone who owns a conference center or the money
to hire one who is that fanatical about wikipedia.
So we look to 2.
Generalized coverage of the event isn't really going to be enough to
interest people and while 600 might get us some venues free they would
expect a few hundred hotel bookings to go with that.
So who might have a specific interest in wikipedia? Newer unis wishing
to push themselves as centres of web innovation maybe. museums wishing
to show that they are fulfilling their public outreach bit of their
charters but do they have the facilities?
Given the likely problems of finding somewhere low cost I would
suggest dropping the near London requirement and putting together an
inventory of everywhere in england and wales with the facilities to
host the thing. If we can agree to that I can start putting together a
list.
--
geni